Monday, November 22, 2010

Show:Grinderman "I couldn't be happier that the side project Nick Cave started in 2006 with three of his Bad Seeds—drummer Jim Sclavunos, bassist Martyn Casey, and violinist Warren Ellis—has turned out to be more than a one-off," writes Peter Margasak. "The band cranks out some of the nastiest rock scuzz I've heard since their debut, with a tense balance of primitive energy and expert polish that gives it a distinctively menacing swagger."

Show:Samson & Delilah Samson (Rowan McNamara) and Delilah (Marissa Gibson) are young aborigines stranded on a godforsaken reserve in the dusty Australian interior. He huffs gasoline all day, living in a perpetual and wordless stupor; she helps her disabled grandmother (Mitjili Gibson) paint traditional canvases that earn the pair hundreds of dollars while selling for five figures in distant urban galleries. "This sterling 2009 debut by Warwick Thornton is harrowing and tragic but has a stoic, stately realism that elevates the material way above victim politics. The amateur leads deliver enormously affecting performances with barely a hundred words of dialogue between them," writes Cliff Doerksen.

Dinner:Henri New contemporary American restaurant and bar from the people behind the Gage. "If the food and drink at a place like this were to suck, we'd call it the whole thing antiquated, inauthentic, or even cynical. I'm going to call it neoclassical—and a pretty fun place to eat," writes Mike Sula.

Dinner:Sushi Mura Proximity to the Music Box helps keep this traditional Japanese restaurant full, and the clean, attractive room doesn’t hurt either. Sitting at the sushi bar is a fun way to study the art of maki rolling—the skillful chefs make a broad variety, from salmon skin with cucumber to more elaborate dragon and rainbow rolls.

Dinner:Kith & Kin There's a small selection of well-made classic cocktails that includes a helluva good Sazerac; the five-spice hot buttered rum could pull double duty as dessert, in place of, say, a slice of fluffy sweet potato pie or the bitter-chocolate-covered banana-cream doughnut. "This is the inviting, irresistible place with casually excellent food that every neighborhood deserves," writes Mike Sula.